‘Rush’ trailer: Can director Ron Howard save the racing movie genre?

The engine-revving first trailer for Ron Howard’s upcoming Formula 1 movie “Rush” made a big splash on the web on Monday.

Following the real-life rivalry between F1 drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), “Rush” looks like a break-neck blast. But while the fictional drivers may be setting records in the movie, the racing genre hasn’t exactly had the best track record at the box office in recent years. Can Howard and Hemsworth, along with rising stars Brühl and Olivia Wilde, help “Rush” avoid fate of other Hollywood auto racing films?

Given F1’s long and storied history, it’s a little surprising that Howard’s “Rush” is only the second Hollywood feature film ever to be set against the backdrop of Formula 1 -- the first being John Frankenheimer’s classic 1966 film “Grand Prix,” starring James Garner and Toshiro Mifune. The last big movie to be based around high level motor racing was Renny Harlin’s 1999 film “Driven,” a huge flop starring Sylvester Stallone (who also wrote the film) and Kip Pardue (what ever happened to that guy? Oh, right: “Driven”). The $100 million movie only made back about half of its budget and was essentially the final nail in the coffin for the careers of both Harlin and Stallone. In addition to being a huge disappointment at the box office, the movie was criticized by movie critics and race car experts alike for its lack of realism (and, well, just being a plain bad movie).

Originally intended to be based around the prestigious Formula 1 racing series, Stallone ended up centering "Driven" on the lesser Champ Car series due to F1’s notorious trade secrecy. Is it possible that Howard's film was hampered by the same lack of access? That's not too likely, given "Rush's" 1970s setting. It's probably a safe bet that Formula 1 racing teams aren't super secretive about the engine designs and technology that powered their cars 40 years ago.

While movies about American racing leagues like NASCAR (such as Tony Scott's "Days of Thunder" and the Will Ferrell comedy "Talledega Nights") have had a little more luck at the box office, they too have been the subject of middling reviews from critics. Besides, "Thunder" and "Talledega" were more vehicles for their stars than they were about auto racing. The closest thing moviegoers have had to a racing movie in the past decade was the Wachowski's disastrous $120 million cartoon adaptation "Speed Racer." Despite gaining a cult following in the subsequent years, the completely off-the-wall "Speed Racer" was a massive commercial and critical failure.

All these flops raise the question: Do audiences even want to see a movie about racing? Heck, even the franchises that began as ostensibly racing movies, like the "Fast and the Furious" series, have given up on the traditional drag racing aspects (though it’s painful to call anything about that franchise traditional) in favour of unrealistic Michael Bay-esque vehicular antics. It really seems like viewers have no appetite for fast cars unless they're being driven by Vin Diesel or turning into giant robots.

Maybe Howard will prove everyone wrong with "Rush," though. The film, which will be released on Sept. 20, is rumoured to be gearing up for appearances at both the Cannes and Toronto film fests this summer. Perhaps some high-brow film fest buzz will help the movie amongst critics -- but that's still no guarantee that audiences will turn out for a cinematic day at the races.